The Lonesome Road

Taking a break from Unix last night, I was surfing through the sports channels ( all three of them ) when I came across ESPN showing Cricket Gold. Now on this show, they usually play highlights of good matches. However, last night’s match was very optimistically categorized as gold - it was India vs Bangladesh. It’s was more like cricket Fool’s Gold.

However, as I watched the highlights, I did notice something - Ganguly’s form with the bat. It was also a trying time for Tendulkar as he was also in a lean patch. Now both these batsmen as they played were let off around 4 times each by the Bangladesh fielders. While Ganguly made a half century and Tendulkar completed his century, there was no real domination of the bowlers - especially the ordinary bowlers - that are part of the Bangladesh team. The captain was scratchy and there is probably no other side in the world that bowls to him on or around the off side. They’ve all found that he cannot play the short ball that comes into him at around rib height. The Bangladeshi bowlers tried a few balls in that mould and when they did - he almost got out twice. Now, his batting skills have worsened - at least at that point of time he knew where his stumps were. Now, the only time he seems the stumps are when they are flat on the ground.

One more aspect of the match was the running between the wickets. Tendulkar is fast - and he hares through the first run and mostly presses for a second. However, our great captain believes that that the fastest form of running is an amble. You could see the anger and frustrationon Tendulkar’s face each time he called for a second run. Makes me wonder - what would happen if Inzy and Ganguly were batting together? This lazy attitude also carries on into his fielding. In the recent Indo-Pak matches, as soon as the ball was hit anywhere near Ganguly, the batsmen would call and run for two.

It seems now that Ganguly is planning to make the best of his ban and join County Cricket (he’ll be playing for Kent). A newspaper coloumn pointed out today that the Kent players are not very happy with Ganguly as according to them, he does not “play from the heart”.

Boss Ganguly - take heed.